Dawn
by Finding Beauty
Summary: Vincent and Lucrecia. It was a love that could have saved them, if only it hadn’t come too late.


**Disclaimer**: _Final Fantasy VII_ and its characters—including the ones contained or simply mentioned here—are the property of Squaresoft and other respective entities. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Author's Note**: This story is dedicated to Anna, who first inspired my interest in the Vincent/Lucrecia love affair. As this is my first foray into the fandom, I just hope I've done the relationship justice. Links to two illustrations by Anna may be found in my profile, and feedback is much craved.

  
  


**Dawn**

  


_"Too much hope is the opposite of despair . . . an overpowering love may consume you in the end."  
— Vincent Valentine_

  
Eventually, it had to end. All things like this did. She knew that; she supposed she had known it from the start. It wasn't for her to be granted the opportunity to simply be young and enamored in love, with no worries beyond the time they could not spend in the other's presence. Her promises, her commitments, always hung over her head, casting a pall upon each shining moment that occurred with him. Her dedication to science had once been the only fulfillment she had in life, the feeling that came with a new discovery filling in another piece of an empty whole. For what was love but a fleeting memory to be recalled for but a lifetime or less, while knowledge would last for generations to come?

But then, she had never expected to meet someone like him. He was her protector, her caring guardian who attempted to always keep a professional demeanor, but in his brief glimpses of openness showed himself to possess the very same vulnerability as her. Trapped within the confines of duty, sentenced to a life in which they had given up the hope of love.

In his more sentimental moments, Vincent mused that sparks had flown between them from the very beginning, and though Lucrecia knew better, she never bothered to correct him. It had been his intellect that first drew her to him; though the Turk was a quiet sort, he was more philosophical than the staunch utilitarian appearance would suggest, and they had found themselves in deep conversation more than once.

Neither mentioned it, but they both had sensed the loneliness in the other, the void that was aching to be filled. They needed, for once, to have the comfort of another human being, to remember that they were alive, and how to _feel_. And when one night she silently led him to her room, they learned what they had denied themselves for so long. They realized that they needn't make nameless martyrs of themselves.

It was a love that could have saved them, if only it hadn't come too late.

For that Vincent loved her, Lucrecia had no doubt. She felt it in his kisses, his caresses, each softly spoken word and hesitant, but genuinely given, smile. And she loved him in return, loved him to the point of questioning all the foundations her life was built upon. And then just as quickly her love could turn to hate, because he made all the logic of her world suddenly mean nothing. It was a vicious cycle of doubt that kept her in a constant state of turmoil, all over her feelings for the enigmatic man who had come into her life such a short while ago . . . but whom she felt as if she had never been without.

At first, overwhelmed by the sensation of being in love, she found she could ignore the difficulties they faced. She could never completely forget, but she could, even if only for a few minutes, put them in the background. They were subtle about their relationship, as if bound by a silent agreement to keep things discreet. But as time wore on, it became more and more obvious that being quiet could only last so long—it was inevitable that eventually, someone would find out, and it would have to come to an end.

Lucrecia knew well that she would have to be the one to stop it, to break a heart that had never loved before, but she kept delaying the moment. But a little while longer, she thought, when his lean silhouette slipped silently through her doorway. His presence was tangible, provoking a tingling sensation as if his warm breath had already swept across her skin. He always came to her that way; a spectre of shadow and light with his ebon hair and flawless marble skin, both bold and insubstantial as moonlight, and fleeing with the dawn.

Vincent was intoxicating though he did not attempt to be so, the dark and central focus of a room not solely for his beauty, but for the melancholy air that pervaded him, the deep and brooding countenance and the forlorn look in his eyes. Her attention was pulled to him as surely as a moth to a flame, and yet her gaze remained rooted firmly forward at the sheaf of papers upon her desk. She longed to turn and watch him as he crossed the room to part the curtains; in her mind's eye she could see his graceful movements, allowing silvery moonlight to chase the shadows across the polished hardwood floor, mingling with the warm glow of the lamplight.

Lucrecia firmly studied the black and white print upon the page, but with the soft sounds of a quiet sigh and the gentle rustle of clothing behind her, she could easily picture the way Vincent looked as he moved to stand at her side. His head tilted downward to regard the research that he presumed to be her source of preoccupation, then when she finally turned to look at him, he took hold of the oval glasses that were slipping down her nose and removed them entirely, setting them atop the papers in silent dismissal of her work for the night.

And as he did, Lucrecia found herself all but abandoning her earlier thoughts of ending this destructive love affair. Instead, she reached and turned out the lamp, a part of their nightly ritual, one of the many things they both did now without conscious consideration of the matter, working seamlessly from one motion to the next, until it was difficult to tell where the thoughts of one ended and those of the other began.

Slender fingers ran along the curve of her jaw then, cool fingertips catching beneath her chin and tilting her face up to his for a kiss that made any words die there, seared from her lips with this fire. They never did speak at the beginning of these nightly trysts; it was customary for them to hold their words until afterward, when the longing was not so strong. For when they had been without seeing each other, there was no way of expressing with mere words the intensity of what they felt.

But tonight, not for the first time, Lucrecia did wish that Vincent would say something, anything; that the low whisper of his voice might form into more of what fell as idyllic, philosophical poetry upon her jaded senses. For she often felt that these encounters were more like vivid dreams, that he was slowly becoming the incubus who seduced her at night, stealing away a little more of her soul each time—for she was losing herself to him, little by little, but not just her soul; no, she was giving him her heart, her soul, and her very being . . . a being that was no longer entirely her own to give.

The resurfacing of that thought made her heart ache, and she could not help but shudder at the words that had passed between Hojo and herself. Vincent had no way of knowing where her sudden unease had come from, but his arms reflexively tightened around her, a protective, comforting circle, trusting and certain that what he held was right.

They spent a long while standing that way, two lovers embracing each other in a single moment cut out of eternity, untouched by time or the worries of the world around them, allowing everything to pass without their concern. And when they at last reluctantly pulled away, it was only so that Vincent could sweep Lucrecia into his arms and carry her to the bed.

It was with slow and tender care that they made love, but no less passionately than the times before for the pace they took. And after the night began to slip away and the moonlight traced the path of time across the room, the lovers lay sated in each other's arms, settled in the peaceful stillness. Vincent's breathing began to take on a deeper and more even tone, his fingertips tracing idle patterns along the curve of her shoulder blades and her spine, but Lucrecia was wakeful, and each lingering doubt began to creep its way silently back into her mind.

She sighed softly, wistfully, as she lifted a hand to brush Vincent's unruly hair away from his sleeping face. He was everything she ever needed, and everything she never should have had. Life before him was far less complicated, and yet when she thought to remember the way things had been before she had him to warm her heart, she knew she was empty then.

But even still, she was a scientist and a woman of reason, despite her weakness in giving in to her passions . . . and Vincent, despite the gentle way he loved her, had his own demons to face. What was between them was built on instability—their mutual need to have someone to hold on to, someone to love them. And though they rarely spoke of the future, Lucrecia knew that Vincent secretly held the same fundamental wants that most had in their baser instincts: the desire to wed, to raise a family . . . and if she thought too long about the way he held her, she could imagine those same arms cradling a child.

Something about the idea of having a child with Vincent made her heart ache. She had agreed with such blind certainty to the experiments, but now wondered if she could actually bear to do such a thing. It was only another obstacle they could not overcome; he would never agree to any of it, and Lucrecia herself wondered if she could have a baby with _his_ eyes, _his_ face, _his_ nature, only to have the child taken from her before she even got to hold it. To watch her own flesh and blood, the product of their love, become nothing more than a subject of scientific research?

Despite his own flaws, she knew what Vincent would think of such an idea. He had his own scars, his own sins to bear, but he would think their experiments to be a travesty. Lucrecia accepted that, to a certain point, Hojo was correct—but how could he truly _know_? Hojo was vastly learned of science, certainly, but he lacked the comprehension of love that Lucrecia herself had been both blessed and cursed to learn in the past few precious months.

But for all the arguments she could find to Hojo's reasoning, Lucrecia had to accept that Vincent would never be able to understand. He would never condone it, and though he would try for her sake, she could not put the responsibility on herself for making Vincent unhappy. Her own motives were both selfish and selfless—she could have chosen to leave behind her life's work and be with him, but that led to thoughts and consequences that she feared to face, a future of uncertainty that relied almost solely upon emotion.

She had to let him go, for both their sakes. But tonight, he was still hers, and she would let herself pretend she had ever been his. For once, she did not allow herself to fear the pale glow of day on the horizon as she laid awake, resting her hand against his chest and watching him sleep, enveloping herself in the feel and sound of his heartbeat. And when he woke just before dawn, and moved to sneak back to his own room as he always did, she stopped him, drawing him back down to the bed and clinging to him with the desperation of someone who knows their secret is revealed but not yet told.

Lying there, bodies pressed together, arms and legs and hearts entwined, they watched the dawn together for what would be the first, last, and only time. And while Lucrecia would think of it as a way of saying goodbye, as a parting gift to him, Vincent would see it as a silent acceptance of hope for the future. And he would think of the ring in his jacket, and smile his rare, enigmatic smile, while she thought not of the start of something new, but the end of something that had hardly been.


End file.
